As I mentioned in “What’s the Alternative?“, Nuclear accounts for 6% of world wide energy production, the largest source after all the various fossil fuels. Nuclear is not a form of renewable energy, but it is a potential alternative to fossil fuel. Nuclear has a bad reputation, primarily due to potential hazards of the power plant and the waste, as well as the fear of nuclear weapons. I don’t believe these issues are sufficient to rule out a nuclear future.

Modern day nuclear energy utilizes a controlled fission reaction to generate heat. The heat is used to boil water, generating heat. The heat is used to drive a steam turbine which generates electricity. Fission is the splitting of an atom caused by striking it with neutrons. The splitting of the atom releases energy and additional neutrons which may strike other atoms, causing a chain reaction. The chain reaction is controlled by using materials that absorb (cadmium) and moderate (water) neutrons. A diagram of a light water reactor (LWR) can be seen below.

Thermal Reactor Diagram [Source: Wikipedia]

The most common fuel source for nuclear fission reactors is uranium-235. Naturally occurring uranium is less than 1% uranium-235, the rest being uranium-238. To maintain a sufficient chain reaction, most uranium is enriched to 3-4% uranium-235. One gram of uranium-235 has the energy potential of 3 metric tons of coal [Source: IEER]. The US currently produces 20% of its energy using nuclear power and France uses nuclear for 80% of its power. According to the Energy Blog, China is planning to quadruple their nuclear power by 2020.

One of the primary concerns with nuclear power plants is safety. There have been accidents at plants resulting in radiation contamination. The worst commercial nuclear reactor accident in the US, Three Mile Island (1979) is said to have produced less than 100 millirems of radiation exposure on site (less than annual exposure due to natural sources) and 1 millirem of exposure to nearly 2 million people ( a chest X-Ray is about 6 millirems). [Source: US Nuclear Regulatory Commission]

The destructive power of nuclear weapons also feeds the fear of nuclear power generation. A nuclear weapon utilized an uncontrolled chain reaction of weapons-grade uranium. Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to over 85% to achieve such a devastating result. Enriching uranium to weapons-grade level is not a trivial process, although knowledge of the enrichment process for nuclear power generation could lead to the knowledge of achieving weapons-grade uranium. Or so it is feared.

Uranium is a fairly common material in the Earth’s crust. While uranium-235 produces much more energy than coal, a lot of uranium ore is needed to produce the necessary uranium-235. However, many studies have shown the indirect emissions from nuclear power generation are many times less than fossil fuel plants. Nuclear generation does not produce most of the pollutants associated with the combustion of fossil fuels. Spent rods can be reprocessed to recover 95% of the remaining uranium, but the technology to achieve this is still in it’s early stages. France, the leading reprocessing country, recovers 28% of their spent fuel. The rest is placed in secure storage with the hope that the technology will arise which can reprocess the material further.

Nuclear technology continues to improve. Continued improvements in reactors and reprocessing will make nuclear even more viable. Research is still ongoing in the ever-elusive area of fusion reactors, which theoretically use and produce fairly harmless material, but they are not yet viable. In the mean time, concerns for safety will most likely relegate nuclear to a small role in world-wide energy production.

I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about the future of energy production. I think most people agree that fossil fuel based energy, weather from oil, coal or whatever, needs to be reduced and eventually eliminated. The reasons for this vary: limited supply, climate change, national security, etc. Whichever reason or reasons you believe, lets agree we need to find a better source for our energy needs. So what’s the alternative?

The discussion led me to write this blog. As I started thinking about it, I realized this topic is probably too big to handle in a single blog, so I’m planning to to write a series of entries on this topic, each one touching on a different aspect or potential energy source. Total worldwide energy consumption in 2004 was about 15 TW, that’s 15,000,000,000,000 Watts (source). The energy production breakdown looks something like this:

The basic breakdown is as follows:

• Fossil Fuel (Oil, Coal, Gas): 75%
• Renewables (Biomass, Hydro, Solar, Wind, etc.): 19%
• Nuclear: 6%

So, assuming fossil fuels are on their way out, I’ll focus on the others. I’ll also try to include some other potential sources such as hydrogen fuel cells. Next time I’ll start with Nuclear.

Energy Scavenging is a phrase I had never heard of until I started working with wireless sensor networks. The idea is to collect ambient energy and use it to power something, usually in the form of electricity. I thought the concept was still pretty obscure until I ran across it on the SciFi Tech blog, Green Week: 6 energy scavengers that get you power for free. Apparently this blog entry was part of NBC Universal’s Green is Universal promotion. Apparently last week was NBC’s Green Week where many of their shows had green themes. I guess I missed it, but ad least I ran across this interesting blog.

The article highlights 6 energy scavenging technologies:

1. Tate ambient power module: a module patented by Joseph Tate of California which converts radio-wave energy into electricity. It has the added potential bonus of being able to detect earthquakes.
2. Crowd farms: two MIT architecture grad students try to harvest the energy of many people walking and running, for example in a subway station.
3. Rooftop wind turbines: modular wind turbine array for installation on urban buildings designed by Aerovironment. I guess solar arrays would count too.
4. Waste heat capture: High Merit Thermoelectrics has a plan to harvest all that energy thrown off by truck exhaust systems and catalytic converters.
5. Capturing methane: Oregon-based natural gas provider NW Natural is capturing methane from cow manure, fighting global warming one cowpie at a time!
6. Power skin: IntAct Lab, in Cambridge, MA, has a motion-sensitive power skin concept that captures wasted motion.

In addition to those listed by SciFi, here are a few projects I am aware of:

1. GreenPeak Technologies: Ultra-low power wireless control networks with energy harvesting interfaces for battery free nodes.
2. EnOcean: Self-powered wireless sensors - Green. Smart. Wireless.
3. Perpetuum: Vibration energy harvesting technology enabling wireless and battery-free sensing.
4. East Japan Railway Company: As read on TreeHugger’s Japan: Producing Electricity from Train Station Ticket Gates using piezo elements to collect energy as commuters walk through.

I just read on EcoGeek about the new Everex TC2502 gPC (pictured on right) for sale at Wal-Mart for $199. What’s even cooler is that it’s running something called gOS, which appears to be a consumerized version of Ubuntu Linux (see picture below). The computer has a 1.5 GHz processor from Via, an 80 GB hard drive and 512 MB of RAM. This doesn’t seem like much, but it’s plenty for running Linux! It comes with a variety of applications like Open Office, Skype and a bunch of Google applications all available right on the desktop. It looks like gOS is really trying to focus on the least common denominator.

Not forgetting the topic of this blog, this should be one of the greener PCs on the market. While Windows Vista is pushing faster processors with lots of memory, this machine will be keeping the power down by sticking to a more reasonable speed. Not only is the Via C7-D processor RoHS compliant, but it is also the “world’s first Carbon Free computer component.” That is, Via will offset every kilogram of carbon produced by using this processor over the lifetime of the computer (assumed to be about 3 years). Offsets are made through reforestation, alternative energy and energy efficiency projects.

How’s that for a green stocking stuffer that everyone can use?

The 2007 Award Ceremony for the California Clean Tech Open were held today in San Francisco. The event was held in the Palace of Fine Arts Theater. It started with an exhibit area where each of the finalist team had an opportunity to present their companies to anyone attending the event. Attendees included press, investors, and various other industry affiliates. We had a poster set up with a flier hand out explaining our product and business proposition. We talked to quite a few different people from a wide variety of backgrounds. This reminded me of a trade show that was open to the public. You just never know who your talking to at any given time, and any contact could provide you with an important connecton, so you have to take them all seriously. This lasted from 4:30 - 5:30 PM.

The main program ran from 5:30 - 6:30 PM. It was kicked off by Marc Gotthschalk (left), one of the founders of the CCTO. He was followed by a series of speakers including David Rodgers (top right), Deputy Assistant Secretary, Energy Efficiency, Department of Energy; Jeff Byron (bottom right), Commissioner, California Energy Commission; Noah Horowitz, Senior Scientist, National Resource Defense Council; and Tim Woodward, Managing Director, Nth Power. David Rodgers announced that the DoE had decided to provide each of the winners an expense paid trip to Washington, D. C. to pith their plans to the commercialization group at the DoE. Jeff Byron of the CEC pointed out that California, as a nation state, would be second only to the U. S. as a whole in the consumption of gas. Noah Horowitz of the NRDC pointed out that the current climate crisis has developed environmental heroes in unexpected places, noting that WalMart is responsible for selling over 100 million Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs).

Next in the program were the awards. This section started with the presentation of a CCTO Alumni Award, for the most successful companies from last year’s competition. The award was presented by Rebeca Hwang, Judging Chair for the CCTO. The runner-up is EDC Technologies, last year’s winner in Smart Power and the winner is GreenVolts, last year’s winner for Renewables which recently closed $10M in funding. This year’s winners are as follows:

Smart Power

Winner: Lucid Design Group - Real-time information feedback drives energy conservation
Runner-up: Federspiel Controls - Wireless supervisory control of HVAC systems
Sponsor: AMD
Presenter: Larry Vertal, AMD

Energy Efficiency

Winner: NiLA, Inc. - LED stage set lighting for the entertainment industry
Runner-up: Ahwahnee Technology - Advanced area lighting, disruptive alternative to LEDs and fluorescents
Sponsors: PGE, SDGE, SCE
Presenter: Sharareh Moaddeli, SDGE

Renewables

Winner: 1-Solar - Low-priced long-life inverters for solar PV
Runner-up: Tahoe Water Systems - Self-contained solar/wind based water
Sponsors: PGE, SDGE, SCE
Presenter: Todd Strauss, PGE

Green Building

Winner: BuildFast - House kit for low-income and post-disaster housing
Runner-up: Enverity Corporation - Environmental data management software
Sponsor: Google
Presenter: Bill Weihl, Google

Transportation

Winner: Syncromatics - Automated vehicle location for transit line efficiency
Runner-up: Hum Cycles - High performance electric sport motorcycles
Sponsor: Lexus
Presenter: Kimberly Gardiner, Lexus

Air, Water & Waste

Winner: Microvi Biotech - Waste-free water treatment technologies
Runner-up: EarthGuard - Environmentally friendly plastic packaging
Sponsor: ENVIRON Foundations and Grundfos
Presenters: Alfan DeLorne, ENVIRON Foundation & Poul Doft Fredriksen, Grundfos

Thanks to all the volunteers at the California Clean Tech Open. It was a great experience!

For additional coverage, check out the California Clean Tech Open site and Green Wombat.

CLEAN TECH AWARDS EVENT GALA!
Monday, October 29 - Evening

Anyone. Everyone. Clean Tech Professionals. Curious Minds.
Tackle Global Warming. Great Food. Awards Presentations.

SPEAKERS
Brad Barton, Director of Commercialization, U.S. Department of Energy
Jeff Byron, Commissioner, California Energy Commission
Noah D Horowitz, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council
Tim Woodward, Managing Director, Nth Power

An organic buffet dinner and wine will be served by Living Room Events.

Please register early - Event Details

A few months ago I finally got around to trying out some compact fluorescent lights. The delay was due in part to the lighting situation in my house. I don’t have many of the 40-100W traditional (A-shape) bulbs. The main lighting I use are the reflector (flood) lights in the recessed cannisters in the kitchen and a 3-way bulb in the bedroom. I finally got around to trying our replacements for both, picking them up at Orchard Hardware Supply.

In the bedroom I had a 3-way (50-75-100 Watt) incandescent bulb which I replaced with a DuraBright Compact Fluorescent Springlamp 3-way (14-19-32 Watt) which is supposed to be equivalent to a 40-75-150 Watt incandescent. It is ENERGY STAR certified. I’m quite happy with this change. The new CFL comes on pretty fast, and overall has brighter, whiter light. The only problem is that I can not reattach the lamp shade since the CFL is much bigger. For some reason, the included harp extender did not work. I don’t really care though since I didn’t use the lamp shade before either. This way I can use the lowest setting and still have enough light for most of my needs.

In the kitchen I have 65 Watt R30 recessed flood lamps. For these I picked up a 14 Watt Medium DuraBright Flood Lamp, which is their R30 equivalent. I only got one and tested it in the single cannister over the sink. I was very disappointed when I turned it on. The light was so dim, I could not understand how they could claim it is equivalent to my old 65W bulb. I tried turning it on and off, then put back the old bulb to make sure it was as bright as I thought. I then tried the CFL in one of the 5 cannisters over the center of the kitchen. Still no luck. While I was distracted elsewhere, the light eventually warmed up, and was now as bright as any of the incandescents. I thought they didn’t need this much time to warm up any more. I would say it takes a good 2 minutes to achieve full brightness, and is totally unusable for the first minute or more. I put it back over the sink, but I have not replaced the other bulbs yet. After further investigation it seems this is a common issue with CFLs designed for recessed cannisters. Apparently to handle the higher heat produced in the enclosed cannister, a slower phosphor element is used. I guess this is something I can live with, so I should change out the rest of the bulbs sometime.

I need to look around at the rest of the lights in my house just to make sure I’m using the most efficient lighting I can. Maybe the LED based bulbs will really hit the mass market soon. I’ll be keeping track on the one billion bulbs website. I’ve sponsored a group there, so you can see what I’ve done or join my group by going here, or look for the one billion bulbs banner on the right hand bar.

This morning I attended TechNet’s Annual Innovation Summit at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. TechNet is a bipartisan, political network of CEOs and Senior Executives that promotes the growth of technology and the innovation economy. The summit is co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. It consisted of two discussion panels hosted by Charlie Rose. It was free for the Cal community, which includes me by proxy through the business incubator.

The event started with an introduction by Professor Paul Wright, Director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). He breifly discussed the history of innovation as related to energy at UC Berkeley and in California at large. He was followed by Lezlee Westine, President and CEO of TechNet. Lezlee introduced the panels.

The first panel was titled Charting a National Innovation Policy for the Next Decade. The panelists included John Chambers, Chairman and CEO of Cisco; John Chen, Chairman, President and CEO of Sybase; and Laura Tyson, Professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. The panel focus was on the US Innovation Economy, that is, the US economic dominance based on innovation and technology, and how it can be maintained. Some of the discussion revolved around some of the current barriers to continued innovation. One of the main contributors, as pointed out by Professor Tyson, is the poor quality of the education system, especially K-12. Another problem under discussion was immigration, but not the usual how to keep immigrants out, but rather how do we retain the best and the brightest, especially those trained at US graduate schools (which still rank highest in the world). John Chen addressed the immigration issue though his own experience as an immigrant from Hong Kong. Government investment, or lack there-of, was another concern. While many of the recent technology booms: computing, the Internet, etc., were funded by the Department of Defense, DoD spending has become narrowly focused on the military and security. It seems other departments need to pick up the slack. John Chambers believes the US can once again achieve productivity growth of 3-5% as in the late 1990’s rather than the typical 2-3%. He believes like the Internet in the 1990’s, broadband interaction will drive this new productivity spike in the next five years. Of course he also happens to be Chairman and CEO of one of the largest broadband infrastructure suppliers, Cisco Systems, so he may be a bit biased.

The second panel was titled Green Technologies: Driving Sustainable Global Growth. The panelists included John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Jonathan Schwartz, CEO and President of Sun Microsystems; John Melo, Chief Executive Officer of Amyris; and Dr. Larry Brilliant, Executive Director of Google.org. Dr. Brilliant (great name!) discussed some of the green philanthropic projects being sponsored by Google such as their solar and plug-in hybrid projects. He envisions a day in the near future where end customers will be able to make dynamic choices between “black” and “green” power. Jonathan Schwartz talked about Sun’s advances in reducing power for data centers, which account for some 5% of the nations energy use. He suggested that we need more policy requiring energy and emissions monitoring as well as defining Energy Star type requirements for data centers. John Melo described Amyris’ foray into synthetic biology. They are developing a modified microbe that can turn sugar into diesel. He claims it is much more sustainable than corn ethanol, and that the current administrations’ policy encouraging corn ethanol is flawed. John Doerr mentioned that there are huge opportunities in sustainable energy and that the US needs to step up and lead the world in this area. When asked what he thinks is the primary reason why the US is not currently taking the lead, he said it’s because of “500 votes in Florida.” I guess there’s little question who he voted for in 2000.

I’m really glad I got the opportunity to attend the summit. It was great to see some of the top executives stand up and say what needs to be done to get this country on track with innovation and green technologies. Hopefully their broad reach through their organizations will really start to make a difference. Only time will tell, but hopefully not too much time…